AUS: Series Sandown preview

SANDOWN RACEWAY ASSURED OF HISTORIC GOLD STAR DECIDER THIS WEEKEND
GOLD STAR HISTORY will be made, regardless of the winner, during
this weekends final round of the 2009 Formula 3 Australian Drivers
Championship, to be held at Sandown Raceway...

SANDOWN RACEWAY ASSURED OF HISTORIC GOLD STAR DECIDER THIS WEEKEND

GOLD STAR HISTORY will be made, regardless of the winner, during
this weekends final round of the 2009 Formula 3 Australian Drivers
Championship, to be held at Sandown Raceway in Melbourne.

Separated by just four points after an epic tussle lasting seven rounds
and fourteen races, Melbournian Tim Macrow and British ace Joey Foster
will battle for Australia's top Open-Wheel award this weekend and both
have a shot at the record books.

A 16-car field has entered for Sandown's SuperPrix event, the largest
of the year and one containing the most international drivers ever for
a championship round of the F3ADC. It's also the first time since 2004
that Australia's premier open-wheel category will have visited the
Sandown circuit.

The list features seven overseas drivers hailing from countries like
China, Indonesia, Great Britain and New Zealand, coupled with a group
of Australian drivers hailing from New South Wales, Queensland, West
Australia and Victoria.

And in a series first, the action from Sandown will be available live
and free online across the weekend.

Macrow will be seeking to join an elite group of just eleven drivers to
have won multiple Australian Drivers' Championships since it was first
awarded in 1957, the 25-year-old from Ormond - just five minutes from
the track - having won the title in 2007.

Should he win, Scud Racing's Macrow will also become just the second
person ever to win two Australian Formula 3 Championships, Paul
Stevenson the only other person to achieve the feat when he won in 1999
- 2000.

Macrow has won seven times this year for a total of 12 podium finishes,
seven pole positions and four fastest laps.

Should Foster snare the title, however, it will become the first time in
history that drivers from outside Australia or New Zealand will have won
the Gold Star in consecutive years, fellow Brit James Winslow having won
in 2008.

It would also mark the amazing return to driving after having his back
broken in several places after a horrific crash in German F3 several
years ago. This year marks the Cornwall chargers' first full season of
open-wheel competition since the crash and has featured six wins, eleven
podiums, eight fastest laps and a clean sweep of every available point
at the Clipsal 500.

A Foster win would also give Team BRM back-to-back titles, a feat the
team has never achieved despite title success in 2002, '04, '06 and last
year.

The pair will fight for the 53rd Australian Drivers Championship over
two races this weekend, though the format has been modified from the
usual to add further spice to the title battle.

Sunday will feature a sprint (12 lap) race in the morning followed by
the 22-lap SuperPrix finale' in the afternoon to wrap up the season.

Qualifying will also take on a new significance with the second session
on Sunday - to set the grid for the SuperPrix race - to feature a new
elimination-style format wherein the top six fastest cars will progress
through to their own 10-minute session called the ‘Quick Six'.

These six cars will set the first three rows of the grid whilst
grid positions seven and back will be decided in the first part of
qualifying. A stand-alone, all-in, 20-minute session will set the grid
for race one earlier on Saturday morning.

The SuperPrix field features a host of new talent from here and abroad,
adding further spice to an already exciting weekend.

In the outright cars, 16-year-old Indonesian Rio Haryanto joins Astuti
Motorsport for his second round of the Formula 3 Australian Drivers
Championship, after impressing in his debut at Queensland Raceway in
August racing a National Class Dallara.

Haryanto was recently crowned the Asian Formula BMW champion following
the Macau Grand Prix last weekend.

He won't have it all his own way, however, 15-year-old Kiwi Mitch Evans
set to make his championship debut driving a sister Team BRM Dallara to
that of championship contender Joey Foster.

Evans set the Australian Formula Ford Championship on fire this year,
finishing second overall and winning a majority of the races in the
second half of the season. Evans knows Sandown well, too, having tasted
success at the track when the Formula Ford championship visited earlier
this year.

In the National Class four drivers will make their respective F3 debuts
this weekend.

Former CAMS Rising Star Formula Ford driver and Karting-star Kristian
Lindbom will race an Astuti Motorsport F304, whilst West Aussie young
gun Bryce Moore joins TanderSport for the weekend, driving the car
Leanne Tander drove to a National Class win at Phillip Island earlier
this year.

From the youthful exuberance of the rookies in the field, F3's oldest
driver will also take the starter at Sandown, John Boothman having just
won the Australian Super Sprint Championship at Phillip Island last
weekend.

The Sandown Formula 3 lap record looks set to be consigned to the record
books, the existing benchmark set towards the beginning of the decade in
2002.

The benchmark stands at 1m09.4252 and was set by New Zealand driver
James Cressey whilst driving an F301 Dallara.

Action this weekend will be broadcast live online via the Formula 3
Australian Drivers' Championship website. Live streaming footage and
audio of qualifying and both races will be available across the weekend
as well as on-demand footage.